A Chance Encounter
by Medea3
Summary: My personal favorite among my stories. Narrated by twelve-year-old Lucas Roberts as he accompanies Kate on a business trip of sorts.


"A Chance Encounter"  
  
Disclaimer: If they were mine, I wouldn't need a little "disclaimer" up here.  
  
Note: This fits into the Days timeline of the mid-late 1980s, except Sami, who was portrayed on the show as little more than a toddler during this time, has been aged somewhat to keep her age consistent with Lucas' age.  
  
The highway pavement went on forever, yellow line, white line, yellow line, white line. It was uninteresting to stare at but I had nothing else to do.  
  
"Lucas? Are you all right, Baby?"  
  
"Yeah, fine," I said, sitting up straighter and turning to look at my mother instead of out the window. I wasn't fine, not really. I was tired of riding in her stupid car, even if it was a Mercedes. Normally, we traveled by airplane and I liked that much better. Everyone is always nice to a cute little boy with big brown eyes, although I'm almost too old to be looked at as cute now. But when you're moving across the country, you have to drive, which wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have to go out of our way so Mom could talk to some new client of her new company. Ordinarily, when Mom and I go somewhere, we have fun, but she was nervous about her new job and was thinking more of it than of me.  
  
Mom is a businesswoman, and she moves from one corporation to another every couple of years. She gets a new job with a great title and a big paycheck, so we move. I'm kind of different from a lot of the kids I've gone to school with that way; I've never lived in one place too long. There isn't really anything to keep us in one place, since I don't have any grandparents or aunts or uncles or even a father who might tell Mom not to move. I mean, I had a father once, but he died before I was old enough to remember. Mom doesn't like to talk about him much. All I'm sure of is that he went to a military academy and then to West Point, so that's where I'm going in a few more years. Two, to be exact.  
  
"Pull down the mirror. Look at your hair," Mom commanded.  
  
"It looks fine."  
  
"Make it look better."  
  
I rolled my eyes and did as I was asked. She glanced at the road and took one hand off the steering wheel to try to smooth it out herself.  
  
"Mom, it's okay."  
  
She laughed, and took her hand out of my hair, to my relief. "You're right. I'm just nervous about meeting this man."  
  
"Gee, I couldn't tell."  
  
"Lucas!"  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"It's all right. Now, I only have to speak to him for a moment to collect the papers to take to my new office. They don't trust these papers to the post office. I don't think you'll have to talk to him, so just sit at our table and look well-behaved and charming, as you are, okay?"  
  
"I told you I would the first time you told me what to do."  
  
"I know."   
  
I wondered if I should say what I was thinking. "Mom?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Can I ask you something?"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"You know that magazine article about you in Business Weekly? The one that said your confidence was extraordinary, and all of that?"  
  
"And?"  
  
"Why would they think that?"  
  
"Everyone gets nervous, Baby. It's not their place to see it. It's our secret, okay?"  
  
"Okay." I had already known that, really, and I'm not sure why I wanted to ask. Maybe I just like knowing that I'm important in Mom's life, since I'm not really a part of anyone else's.  
  
"This is going to be fabulous, Lucas. I'll be making twice as much money as I was at this time last year."  
  
"Then can I have a car?"  
  
"You can have anything you want, but you won't be able to use a car for much until you get out of school. You aren't even old enough to *drive* yet."  
  
She turned off of the highway and into the parking lot of a restaurant that looked oddly upscale for being next to an interstate. I liked it as soon as we walked inside; the booths were separated from one another by carved wooden fence-like things that I would have been tempted to climb if I had been a few years younger.  
  
Mom's business contact was nowhere in sight, so she sat with me and I looked around. There was only one other kid in the crowded room, a boy with red hair and green eyes who looked a little bit younger than me. He caught my eye and also looked at someone in the booth behind me before he started to climb the wooden divider. Most of the people in the room turned to look at him, and soon someone from the restaurant came running and gave him and his parents a lecture. They left quickly and apologetically, and Mom flashed me an I'm-glad-you're-my-son look as the man we had come to meet walked in and took a seat by the bar. She left to talk to him, and I stayed where I was, doing my best to look like a wooden doll instead of a normal kid, since in some circumstances normal kids can be frowned upon, and I would never get my Mom in trouble.  
  
But I became very bored very fast. I was too far away to hear what my Mom was saying, so I started to eavesdrop on the people sitting behind me. Listening, I realized that I had been wrong; there were at least two more kids in the room, maybe three. That must have been why the red-haired boy looked behind me-- he had wanted to gloat to everyone in the room under age fourteen about how great he was.  
  
"I don't LIKE Diana," snapped a girl my age or a year older, judging by her voice. She was mad, so her words were the first ones I could hear clearly. "The only good thing about being on vacation this soon after . . . is that we don't have to see Diana!"  
  
I don't think anyone said anything, but I could just imagine the looks on their faces until the girl resumed, "I'm sorry, Dad, I just--"  
  
"I know," he interrupted, his voice husky. He cleared it quickly. "Twinners, can you behave yourselves for a few minutes while your sister and I get something from the car?"  
  
"Yes!" they chorused. They were younger than me. Two or three years. And they had saccharine, annoying voices, especially the girl.  
  
"Are you sure? No climbing up the walls like that other boy?"  
  
"No, Dad."  
  
"No, Daddy." Daddy? Wasn't she a little old for that?  
  
"This is a nicer restaurant then we're usually in. More stuck up, really."  
  
The girl twin just giggled, and the boy repeated, almost sarcastically, that they would be good. Their father seemed satisfied and ushered the older girl away.  
  
As soon as he was out of earshot, the girl spoke.  
  
"Why do you think he really wanted to talk to her? We didn't leave anything in the car."  
  
"Because she almost said Mom's name."  
  
"You don't think because she was mean to Diana?"  
  
"That too."  
  
"Do you like Diana?"  
  
"Do you?"  
  
"I asked first."  
  
"You're the girl."  
  
"So?"  
  
"Girls know more about this stuff."  
  
"Okay . . . she's all right. She's okay if she makes Daddy stop acting like he did right after Mom."  
  
"That's what I thought, too. And remember, we made a deal to act like we didn't know how he was acting."  
  
"I know. He isn't here. He didn't hear us."  
  
"Right, but it doesn't matter who hears us. We have to be good. If we aren't good, she won't come back."  
  
The girl hesitated. "I'm not always sure she's going to come back. Dead can be permanent sometimes."  
  
"She will. You have to say she will."  
  
"I know, but sometimes it seems like I'm forgetting things. A little bit more every day."  
  
"So am I," he admitted, and neither of them said anything for a while. That hadn't been a very fun conversation to overhear, even if it had been kind of amusing to hear the little girl say that dead was permanent "sometimes." Where did these people come from? I was surprised to learn that their mother was dead. From the way they'd been talking, I'd assumed she had just walked out on them or something. Suddenly, I heard the girl's high-pitched giggle, and the clatter of a plate or a glass. She must have thrown something on her brother's plate, or maybe in his drink. I was genuinely glad that I didn't have any sisters.  
  
"Hey!" the boy protested, not sounding very mad at all. He must have thrown something back at her, because she muffled a squeal. "You think that was bad?" He giggled, too, and I wondered if I wanted to know what he was doing.  
  
"Stop . . . stop . . . stop!" At first she had been playing, but now her voice grew sharp. "You have to go get that off your hands before Daddy comes back."  
  
"It's fine."  
  
"It's not! Go into the bathroom and wash your hands before he comes back. Please?"  
  
"Are you okay by yourself?" Sure she was, except that she wasn't very strong on the concept of dead and alive. I couldn't get over that. She won her fight with her brother, and since a momentary lull had fallen over the room, I could hear his receding footsteps. I looked toward my mother then, and she caught my eye, briefly. She was still talking to that man. How long did it take to hand her a stupid file, anyway?  
  
I was startled when I heard the voice from behind me again.  
  
"Was that interesting?"  
  
Who was she talking to?  
  
She slammed her hand-- or maybe it was her head-- against the wooden divider.  
  
"I can tell you were listening to us. So was it interesting?"  
  
"I wasn't listening to you," was all I could think of saying.  
  
"Then why did you just answer me?"  
  
"Because you were banging on my back."  
  
"Oh, I'm sorry." I couldn't quite tell if she was being sarcastic or not, with that noxiously sweet voice. I desperately wanted to see her, but I didn't want to turn around in my seat or leave it, especially since a pair of waiters were making a none-too-subtle show of looking at the children who had been left alone. "You really weren't listening?" she whispered, in a low voice so as not to attract any attention. At least she had that many brains.  
  
"No, I wasn't. I'm just waiting for my Mom to get done talking to someone she works with. She's standing over there."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"You wouldn't be able to see her without turning around."  
  
"I can't see ANYTHING! I feel like I'm in a cage, but I can't move until my Dad and brother and sister come back."  
  
"I know."  
  
"How, if you weren't listening?"  
  
"I *meant*, I know that you can't see anything, and you can't move because we're being watched."  
  
"Do you think they can tell we're talking to each other?"  
  
"I don't know. I don't think so." I felt her shift a little bit against the divider.  
  
"Can you hear me better now?"  
  
"Yes. What did you do?"  
  
"I just turned so that I'm closer to the thinner part of this." She knocked on the divider and we both cringed when a waiter took that as an excuse to stroll over.  
  
"Little girl?" I bet she hated being called that.  
  
"Yes, sir?" Time to turn on the charm, I guessed.  
  
"Are you all right? Where is your family?"  
  
"My Dad and my sister just went back to the car for a minute. I'm fine, really."  
  
The man stormed off reluctantly.  
  
"That was close," I whispered.  
  
"Close to what? I'm not really sure what we're worried about. My Dad just took us on vacation for a couple of days, so we won't be back here."  
  
"Maybe the owners of the restaurant will lock you up to punish you for causing trouble," I answered sourly, realizing that she probably didn't have much to lose by causing trouble, and I did.  
  
"No, they wouldn't! My Dad's a cop," she announced proudly. "He wouldn't let anything happen to me."  
  
"Lucky you."  
  
"What does your Dad do?"  
  
"He's dead," I answered abruptly.  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"You didn't do it."  
  
"No, but my Mom is dead, and I know it hurts." Her voice sort-of cracked.  
  
"I don't even remember him."  
  
"Oh. I sure remember Mom . . ."  
  
"But not as much as you did at first?" I was curious as to what she would say, and hoped she wouldn't pick up on the fact that I had been eavesdropping on her after all.  
  
"Yes," she murmured. "But I have my Dad, and my brother and sister. Do you have brothers and sisters?"  
  
"Just my Mom."  
  
"Aren't you lonely?"  
  
"No! We move a lot, so I'm used to making friends fast. But I still wouldn't want to share Mom with a brother and sister."  
  
"But you could talk to them about your father, or anything. I would be so lonely without mine."  
  
"You can feel lonely or not lonely no matter what your family looks like. It's got nothing to do with anything."  
  
"Maybe."  
  
"Definitely."  
  
She didn't argue, which seemed so unlike what I knew of her that I asked if she was still there.  
  
"Yes . . . but I don't know where the rest of my family is." She sounded so worried that I didn't want to ignore her or tease her.  
  
"If they don't come back, you can come live with me."  
  
"I thought you didn't want any sisters."  
  
"You could be my servant."  
  
"Servant?" she giggled. "Come on."  
  
"We have them sometimes," I gloated. "Soon Mom is going to be able to start acquiring her own companies, and we'll be so rich then! We'll have a thousand!" By 'sometimes' I meant when Mom absolutely had to put up a front of being rich and hired someone for a day or a week.  
  
I could hear her shrug because her shoulders brushed against the divider. "I know some people who have servants. But we don't. I don't think Dad would ever want them. All he wants is for Mom to come back."  
  
What could I say to that? "It's not the same thing. Most things money can buy, and some things it can't."  
  
"The best things." I wondered if she believed that. She sounded like a proverb or a greeting card. She was probably just parroting her parents.  
  
"Even if that's true, you can buy enough things to make up for not having the few things you can't buy."  
  
"How much fun would that be if you didn't have anyone you loved to share them with?" She was back to argumentative and self-righteous, her missing siblings forgotten.  
  
"Friends are something you can buy," I answered flatly. After all, it was true. I knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt.  
  
"Not the ones who are worth anything."  
  
"Keep telling yourself that." Why was I bothering to get sarcastic and argue with this little girl? Oh, right. Because I didn't have anything else to do.  
  
"I will!"  
  
"Have you lived in one place all your life?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"That explains it."  
  
"What?"  
  
"You've known a lot of your friends since you were born. You don't have to meet people and size them up and know who you want to be around for the next two years right away."  
  
"What does that have to do with money? *I've* known you for about five minutes, and *I* like you. I'd be your friend, and you wouldn't have to buy me anything or have anything."  
  
I had absolutely no idea of how to answer that. I truly hated myself for a second for appreciating that she had said it. She was probably in about the fourth grade, and, despite losing her mother, she had apparently grown up in a storybook home with a white picket fence and two perfect siblings that she never fought with. How could she be expected to know anything about the real world? She didn't even believe that death was permanent. I couldn't have shattered her illusions of love and true friendship and everyone taking care of each other if I had wanted to-- and I admit I did want to. From the way she talked, I could tell that she *was* smart, and from the way she handled her brother, I could tell that she was both assertive and impulsive. What a waste for someone like that, someone who might be worth knowing, to live in a dreamland.  
  
In the end, I was spared from answering because before I could say anything or she could prompt me to say anything, her brother returned.   
  
"Where were you?" she demanded.  
  
"Washing my hands."  
  
"All that time?"  
  
"I took the long way back. You should see what they have in the other room! They have a fishtank that covers the whole wall, and they don't just have little fish in it, they have huge fish, like in an aquarium."  
  
"Right."  
  
"They do. You know I'm not lying."  
  
"No, you aren't. But where?"  
  
"Just go through the door down that way, and go left. You'll see it. It's amazing."  
  
"I can't go see it."  
  
"Yes, you can. You should-- I wish I could've taken a picture of it, it's so cool."  
  
"They'll be back soon."  
  
She was right. The two were interrupted just then.  
  
"Yes, we will be back soon, and since I see and hear everything, I know" he paused, probably taking in the scene before him, "that you two were very well-behaved while we were gone."  
  
"We said we would be," answered the boy.  
  
"And I'm proud of you. Now, as your reward--"  
  
"Lucas, I'm back."  
  
"What?" I answered, momentarily confused.  
  
Mom laughed. "Lucas, where have you been?"  
  
"Here."  
  
"I know that. That isn't what I meant, and you know it."  
  
"I guess I was just thinking." I looked at my watch.  
  
"I know, I know, it took too long. Sometimes these business things are unpredictable."  
  
"All he had to do was give you a file."  
  
"Thank you. I wish I could send you after him to explain that."  
  
"Why? What else did he do?"  
  
"Oh, he didn't *do* anything, except hand me the papers and buy me a drink."  
  
"So? What's wrong with that?"  
  
"Nothing. But he had to *talk* to me about everything. The cities he's lived in. Everyone at his company. The weather. Who's going to make the playoffs. The culmination of his quest to find his true soulmate." She rolled her eyes so dramatically that she had to toss her head around with them. "The one person who is destined to be his other half, to share his life, to be strong where he's weak, to need him, to understand him, to interest him, to love him." The sarcasm dripped off her tongue, and her scorn increased with each word. "I needed that file, not a lecture on true love."  
  
"You don't believe in true love?" This was not an ordinary topic of conversation for me, but she had sounded so hateful that I wanted her to elaborate.  
  
"Oh, I suppose it's *possible*. Many things are *possible*. And there are people out there who have wonderful marriages, and who raise their children together happily." She cringed, and I assumed it was because she had never had a father for me, although I had told her repeatedly that I didn't care. "I don't want you to think there's no such thing as real love, Lucas, because when you feel it, even for a moment, it makes all the pain in the world worth it. But *please*, if you ever do fall in love, don't chatter on about it like an inane greeting card."  
  
Talking about love and life like a greeting card. Right. I jumped up; no one was going to care since I had an adult with me now. I couldn't turn to the table behind me fast enough. I wanted to see that girl, the one who had been so convinced that money could not buy everything and true love would always win out, even from beyond the grave. I needed to see her, to know that in my boredom I had not simply dreamed her up.   
  
But the table was empty. The plates and glasses and napkins still lay there, as did the tip. I very briefly considered pocketing the money, but then thought better of it as the reality that I would never see her face, her eyes, set in.   
  
Something of her aura still seemed to linger there, and I reached to touch the divider she had leaned against. Even that tiny hint of her was ephemeral, though, and I began to suspect that I had imagined her.  
  
If she had truly been there, she was gone now. I could no longer even feel her presence, as I was sure I had been able to do for an instant, the way I always could feel my mother when she came home in the middle of the night.  
  
I turned back around and sat down.  
  
"What was that all about?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Nothing?"  
  
"While you were working I was talking to someone sitting back there, but she's gone now."  
  
"*She*? Was she pretty?"  
  
"I don't know. I didn't see her. No, of course not. She was just a kid. Just a little girl."  
  
"Whatever she was, I'm glad you had something to do while I was dealing with that dreadful man. I really am sorry it took so long, Baby."  
  
"It wasn't your fault. I understand."  
  
"I know you do. I'm so lucky to have you. I hardly need to worry about true love when I have a son like you to think about instead." I smiled at the compliment. We don't say things like that very often, but I know my Mom would do anything for me, because I would do anything for her. She broke the mood, which was too sappy for either of our tastes, by gloating that it was too bad I'd missed seeing what "my little girlfriend" looked like.  
  
"Probably blue eyes and blonde hair, like some china doll. Her voice was so sweet it made my teeth hurt." I nearly gagged.  
  
"Still, she obviously distracted you very thoroughly until I interrupted you."  
  
"Yeah!" I agreed, and I tried to make my eyes shoot fire. "What if she was my one true soulmate, and you made me miss seeing her?"  
  
"Lucas, don't," laughed Mom.  
  
"I could feel her presence when I walked over there. There was some deep connection, and I just can't shake talking to her, but it was so unreal that now I wonder if she was a ghost, or a fantasy . . ." I knew Mom would think I was being sarcastic, or else I never would have said those words, which were more true than I cared to admit.  
  
The smile stayed on her face, but her eyes became infinitesimally more serious. "If she's destined to be a part of your life, I'm sure you'll meet her again."  
  
"How will I know who she is?"  
  
"You won't have to." She became sarcastic and mocking again. "She'll just affect you, you'll never be able to get her out of your mind. No matter how hard you fight against it, or she does, something will always be there to draw you back together. You'll be able to *feel* her when she's in the room with you even if you can't see her, you'll find yourself helping her with no reason." Now she was obviously imitating the man she had just left. "She'll be *inside* of you, and you'll never escape her from the day you meet her."  
  
Mom started laughing, and I did, too. The idea was ridiculous. I became more and more convinced that if I had not imagined our whole exchange, than I had at least imagined perceiving anything but a silly little girl.  
  
Hadn't I?  
  
The End  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
